The shredded inside of a steel factory building with its side torn off. There isa digger in the foreground.

The former Harmsworth Quays printing plant, more recently Printworks, being demolished

I successfully made nattō in a yoghurt maker. A friend from Sanshinkai mentioned that she had had success with this method, so we bought a cheap Lakeland yoghurt maker specifically for the purpose. I chose this one because it allows you to set the temperature and time of fermentation.

The process is simple: steam dried soya beans in a pressure cooker for 35 minutes (for small beans; larger ones might take longer), allow to cool, stir in the starter culture, ferment at 41 C for 20 hours, and enjoy a huge batch of nattō the next day.

We still have spare dried culture, but I was able to use the first batch of nattō to inoculate a second batch a few days later, which means that we now have infinite nattō.

In retrospect, we didn’t need to buy the starter culture. We could probably have used a commercial package to kick it off.

I gave my acoustic guitar a proper setup for the first time since I bought it. I tweaked the action at the nut, levelled and recrowned the frets to fix some choking around the 13th fret, rounded the fret ends, and polished the nut. I put on some new 80/20 strings, and they sound nicer to me than the phosphor bronze set that was on there before.

We took a walk to Greenwich and back on Sunday, as it was sunny and mild – at least, until the sun went down. On the way there, we walked past Convoys Wharf, a fenced-off wasteland that has been derelict for almost all of this century. There have been plans for its redevelopment for decades, but no obvious movement. I said, “I wonder if they’ll get round to building anything here in my lifetime.”

On the way home, I spotted an unfamiliar structure out in the Thames, in the form of a large scaffolded structure a couple of storeys high. After a quick search, I discovered that it’s Plot 22 of the Convoys Wharf site. Something is happening there. I’m most excited by the prospect of being able to walk directly along the river, instead of having to take a large diversion inland. On the other hand, that diversion takes me past the Dog & Bell, which must be my favourite pub in London, and a place I’d still take a detour to visit.

I discovered that a new pub has opened just down the road from us, and I was delighted to find that they operate as a café from nine o’clock in the morning, and encourage people to work from there. Since the demise of Vixen, there hasn’t been a convenient café nearer than Canada Water. I need a chance of scenery sometimes.

I hope this one lasts longer than a year. It was busy on Friday night, and that’s a good sign.

I’m taking the train to Brussels on Friday for FOSDEM. Let me know if you’ll also be there.

I went fishing on the internet and here’s what I found: